Richard John Neuhaus

The Public Square In the January issue, this section carried a commentary titled “The Catholic Church as Interest Group.” Among the points made was that, despite the bishops’ declared intention, a statement such as “Political Responsibility,” issued by the United . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square There are numerous obstacles to making the connections between religion and public life. For some moderns, a quasi-religious commitment to secularism produces an overt hostility to religion in all its manifestations. For many others, religion is self-evidently a purely private . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square More Americans attend church or synagogue each week of the year than attend professional sports events in an entire year. Think about it. The legendary man from Mars who read our prestige press and watched network news for a year would think Americans are obsessed with sports and . . . . Continue Reading »

More than he wanted to be remembered for having been President, Mr. Jefferson wanted to be remembered as the author of the Virginia “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom.” In his draft of that bill he wrote: “The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under . . . . Continue Reading »

Public Square This writer has sometimes puzzled friends and critics alike by expressing a firm, though qualified, admiration for John Dewey. John Dewey?! You mean that arch-secular humanist, that despiser of religious “supersitition,” that progressivist despoiler of our once . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square That is the title of an important article in Social Philosophy & Policy (Vol. VIII, No. 1) by Christina Sommers, Professor of Philosophy at Clark University The burgeoning academic industry of feminist/womanist studies is rife with declarations of a grand social revolution. . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square Books on Islam, we are told, are enjoying brisk sales. For reasons related to the imperialist past of those countries, intellectuals in England and France have generally paid more attention to Islam than have Americans. Apart from academic specialists, American interest in Islam . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square The editorial in our May 1991 issue was titled “Christian Mission and the Third Millennium.” It described the complicated connections between the Christian missionary enterprise and the future of an essentially Western civilization that is, in however ambiguous a . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square Maybe we have been too hard on the editorial page of the most influential of our parish newspapers. Over the years, the New York Times’ editorial writers have been indifferent or hostile to the role of religion in our common life. Any impingement of religion on spheres that . . . . Continue Reading »

The Public Square We made a mistake in a recent public symposium by saying, in response to a question, that we had not listened to enough rock music to have an intelligent opinion about it. A journalist reporting on the meeting cited this as evidence certain that this writer is entirely out of . . . . Continue Reading »